Monday, August 8, 2011

Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Souvenirs 香港澳门之旅纪念品 2-8 Aug 11

Look at our souvenirs!

Actually less than half belongs to me. The rest belongs to Momo dear hahaha.

The row of coins at the bottom are Hong Kong Disneyland coins. Cost HKD 10 each.
I have a bunch of the Tokyo Disneyland coins at home waiting for these to join them in my collection.

The column on the right are ticket stubs from all the places we've been to:
- Dragon's Treasure @ City of Dreams casino
- Ferry tickets from HK to Macau
- Tickets to The Peak
- Tickets to Madam Tussaud's
- Tickets to Hong Kong Disneyland
- Invalid Fast Pass tickets from Hong Kong Disneyland (to keep as souvenirs)

I got 3 shirts from Espirit, 1 from Quiksilver, 1+1 game magazine, half of the foodstuffs and... that's it! Women sure like to shop hahaha! =P


Here's a close-up version without the coins.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Hong Kong via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Royal Plaza Hotel, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Hotel de Edge by Rhombus, click here.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Macau via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Metropark Hotel, click here.

Links to my Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7

Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 7, 香港澳门之旅第七天, 8 Aug 11

香港澳门之旅第七天:8月8日2011年, 星期一

What?!? So fast last day already? Oh man...

Time really flies. It's the last day in Macau and last day of our trip. Nevertheless, we had some last minute fun. I brought Dear to the Macanese Restaurant just behind L'Arc casino to have lunch.

There was some special promotion for a partial buffet set. Comes with a main dish plus free flow of salads and desserts. The main sux sia. Salads still not so bad.


Not the best pork chop around.

After lunch, we went to the nearby 24-hours convenience store and Dear got some last minute goodies. I bought some magazines too. Then we visited the L'Arc casino just across the road to try out luck. We lost HK$60 at one point but eventually managed to win HK$72 on our last try. LOL


Goodbye to Metropark Hotel, Macau.


大包小包。

Then we headed back to our hotel and took our luggage and took a cab to the airport. Goodbye Macau!


There was some photography exhibition at the airport.


You can find all these birds in Macau. Cool man.

And that's the end of our Hong Kong & Macau Trip 2011! See you next time!

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Macau via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Metropark Hotel, click here.

Links to my Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Souvenirs

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 6, 香港澳门之旅第六天, 7 Aug 11

香港澳门之旅第六天:8月7日2011年, 星期天

We were so lethargic and lazy in the morning after such a tiring day traveling from Hong Kong on the previous day, we decided to order the hotel breakfast sets. Such indulgence!


American Breakfast set.


Croissant with scrambled eggs and fries.

A hearty breakfast for a bright new day in Macau. We took a short nap after the meal lol. Charged up our batteries and proceeded to grab a cab to visit the Ruins of St. Paul's. But we were told by the taxi-driver that we should just walk there ourselves since it's less than five minutes of travel on a cab. Diao...got business also don't wanna take. We then walked along the streets and visited some shopping area and then finally to the Senado Square.

The whole square was swarming with tourists and the sun was blazing hot. Totally had no mood to look around much. We visited one of the churches there and proceeded to walk along the paths to one of the junctions just before the ruins. We got ourselves the famous pork cutlet buns and some egg tarts and bubble tea from the once famous stall, but it was now not so crowded anymore. I wonder why. Then I decided to take a gamble and took a more secluded route to try to reach the ruins. That path was totally void of tourists save for a few locals walking past. If we took the main path, we would be squeezing with tonnes of other tourists under such obscene weather. Luckily my gamble paid off and we wondered around freely to reach this lovely place, which was just beside the ruins.


We could see the ruins from our position at quite a nice angle.


A close up view.


This little pathway was called Travessa Da Paixão or 戀愛巷.


Not the nicest of places for a picture. See all the graffiti on the wall.

There was graffiti on the walls which were mostly love confessions of couples who visited this place. There's even a Wiki article on this place. Such luck and fate that we managed to stumble upon this place hehe.

We then climbed up the stairs and up a steep slope to reach the side of Ruins of St. Paul's. Certainly the best way to reach there if you don't wanna squeeze with the crowd.


Mission accomplished! Proof of visiting Macau.

Eventually we still walked through the main route back down to Senado Square. Along the way we squeezed through the crowd, which had dwindled significantly by the time we took the route, we visited several shops, even got some items from the Quiksilver shop, as well as foodstuff from Koi Kei, the famous chains of local favourites.

We then walked all the way back to our hotel to put down our souvenirs and stuff and rested for a while. Then it's dinner time! I had wanted to bring dear to this place which I visited on my previous trip to Macau with Hong Ming and Boon Keong a year ago. Didn't take too much trouble finding the place cos Macau is so small.

Upon entry to the restaurant, it gave me a feeling that it's a different management altogether. Looks like the Chinese have taken over the restaurant because the workers look like mainland Chinese. Even the food we ordered didn't remind me of the food that I had a year ago.


锅贴


小笼包

We ordered several other things but was stopped and questioned by the staff as to why I was taking pictures of the food. What attitude was that? Oh well, won't be going back there anymore after such experience. Even the food didn't taste as good as before.

We then took cab to Venetian Macao. Bought some Koi Kei mooncakes from its stall there.

Then at one of the bar area, we saw some salsa dancers performing.


Cool stuff. Didn't have these performances on my previous trip there.


Been there done that! Momorange visits Venetian Macao.

After walking around in Venetian Macao, next was the show that I had planned to go catch with dear. It was this magnificent show that I recommend all visitors of Macau to catch. It is called "Dragon's Treasure".

Details of the show is here.

Show Times : 12:00pm - 6:00pm - every 30 minutes
7:00pm - 10:00pm - every hour
Show Duration : 15 minutes
Ticket Price: MOP30 (Latest update Mar 2014: MOP50)
Place : Level 1, The Boulevard , The Bubble
Enquiries: 8868 6688

Youtube contains many videos of the show, but it's strongly recommended to watch it LIVE. Simply for the 360 degrees of amazing video and wonderful sound system and lighting. Shall not comment too much on it. You have to see it to enjoy the full experience.



Beautifully designed water falling from the heavens.


Cool show. Definitely a MUST SEE.


Who says money can't fall from the sky?


After the show we walked around the hotels but didn't visit the casino. There was another feature of this hotel - Vquarium. It's a large screen showing lifelike mermaids swimming around.



Not sure whether there's a Hard Rock Cafe here.


The kids were fascinated with the mermaid on the right.


We took a shuttle bus to Galaxy Hotel. Traveling is such a convenience around Macau because most hotels/casinos are linked to each other via free shuttle service. Galaxy is a very new hotel casino. It wasn't built when I was there in Jan 2010.

The interiors look so majestic and highly exquisite. Also a must-see hotel casino.



One of the newest hotel casinos in Macau.


Lucky crystals for the lucky gambler.


Walk into a place of grandeur.


Looks like peacock feathers on the ceiling.


In a different colour.


A resident girlband performing in the casino.


That ends the casino tour of Macau. We took another free shuttle back to Star Hotel and walked back to our hotel.

Then it's another indulgence again as we ordered instant noodles for supper lol.



The luncheon meat tastes quite weird zzz.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Macau via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Metropark Hotel, click here.

Links to my Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 7
Souvenirs

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Travel Blog: Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 5, 香港澳门之旅第五天, 6 Aug 11

Hong Kong Macau Trip Day 1: 2nd August 2011, Saturday
香港澳门之旅第五天:8月6日2011年, 星期六

It's the fifth day already!?

We had free breakfast again. This time we ordered different sets from the previous day. Some fruit platter and another is parfait set. Really have nothing else to say except it's AWESOME! Really recommend this hotel if you don't mind the obscurity of the place.


A healthy fruit platter to start off Day 5!


Parfait for the health-conscious.

We went to look for another place recommended by Nut Nut, located in Mongkok. In fact we had wanted to go for this dim sum restaurant on the previous night, however it was too late by the time we reached the restaurant. It closes at 9:30pm.

We reached at around 1:30pm and were told that we had to wait up to 3pm to get a seat. WTH!? We immediately dumped the idea of having dim sum there and opted for 稻香 again.

Here's the address if you wanna try out. Be there (extremely) early!

添好運點心專門店
旺角廣華街2號

We went to the same place again. This time no doubt we were in time for their dim sum menu. But problem was, the restaurant was full house and we had to wait for a while to get our table. We shared our table with an old couple, as well as four other ladies.

And so we ordered so many items that we end up dabao-ing some of them hahaha. But the food was indeed so good that we did not regret ordering so many different items.


桂花红豆糕。 This is GOOD!


马蹄糕拼萝卜糕


香麻叉烧酥。 正点!


Dear's favourite is carrot cake so she ordered four more pieces of this 香煎萝卜糕.
And she ate all of them! O_O


松软叉烧包 - good, 香滑奶皇包 - sux, 稻香鲜虾饺 - good


上汤小笼包


翡翠叉烧肠

What a scrumptious meal. Almost couldn't walk after that. We then made our way back to the hotel to grab our luggage. Had to take this special arrangement of bus service because part of the MTR line was disrupted due to some construction going on. Interesting experience eh? I believe we were also captured on TV because there were cameramen shooting passengers taking this free service. OMG we're overnight celebrities lol.


Of all times they had to do this during our short trip in HK lol.


The westernmost station on Hong Kong Island was closed for renovation/construction.

From our hotel, we walked a distance to the Macau Ferry Terminal. It was part of my plan to take this hotel since it's within walkable distance of the ferry terminal. Did not expect it to be such a chore since I had to pull our 20-kg luggage across several streets, up the stairs, across an overhead bridge, to reach the terminal. Felt like I did some strenuous exercise. But all was good and we got our tickets to the ferry to Macau almost immediately when we reached the ticket counter.

Before long, we hopped onto the ferry bound for Macau and were ready to say goodbye to lovely Hong Kong.


Hotel De Edge By Rhombus as pointed by the black arrow.


The cityscape of Macau is so alluring.

And within one hour, we reached Macau!

Took the free shuttle service from the ferry to our hotel, Metropark Hotel, within 10-15 mins.

In fact, most of the hotels in Macau surely has some free shuttle service to the ferry. So you can hop onto any service if you wanna go anywhere near those hotels.

We checked into our hotel and was told that since we went for the 2 + 1 room, cos that was the cheaper alternative to the available rooms when I made the online reservation, the concierge guy offered to change to this superior room with just a king-size bed with a large living room. Since we don't need the third bed, so we decided to go for this exchange. And it was a pleasant surprise. The room was really one of the biggest in the hotel. Comes with everything you need, as well as a TV area big enough to place two mahjong tables.


Super comfy bed.


Nice interiors.


The wardrobe has every standard thing.


Large TV area with a big sofa and side lamp.


We were watching Channel News Asia lol.


All the controls for the lighting, music, air-con etc.


Even comes with a free soft toy bear bearing the words "Special For You 为您而设".

It was rather late already by the time we settled down. We then walked along the streets of Macau to admire the beauty of the hotels and casinos. By the time we finished the tour, it was probably 10+pm. There wasn't much places to choose from for dinner by that time, so we went for a restaurant called 鼎泰丰 (not the restaurant chain in Singapore) near our hotel which sells really Chinese cuisine. Not very nice, so not worth mentioning.

Went to check out a few other casinos before calling it a day. Shagged! Needed a good night's sleep to chiong the rest of Macau on the following day.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Hong Kong via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Hotel de Edge by Rhombus, click here.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Macau via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Metropark Hotel, click here.

Links to my Hong Kong Macau Trip 2011
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 6
Day 7
Souvenirs